This invention relates to energy detectors and more particularly to an electronic device for detecting the presence of radar energy in the radio frequency band.
At present, both consumer advocate groups as well as individual consumers are becoming increasingly sensitive to various types of pollution. However, the introduction of some sophisticated electronic devices has created a new form of pollution which is considerably less obvious than the clouds of smoke belching from a tall smoke stack, but is no less present or insidious. This new form of pollution is electronic in nature and can be generated by devices such as television receivers, radar ovens, citizen band receivers and the like.
The Federal Communications Commission now requires that each such device have "type approval" to assure that, when the device leaves the factory, the radiation will not exceed a given level at a specified distance from the device. Thus in the case of a radar oven, the user is assured of low levels of any radar leakage when the oven is new. However, no means are provided for detecting any excessive radiation leakage, for example, after the radio frequency (R.F.) seals around the door age and crack, and excessive R.F. energy escapes. Similarly, excessive R.F. energy may escape from a television receiver, and unless the exact point of the escaping R.F. energy is located, the use may be subjected to excessively high levels of R.F. energy.
Heretofore, unless the user of an electronic appliance or device had access to a radio laboratory with sophisticated R.F. detectors, the escaping R.F. energy would go undetected. In order to locate and pinpoint escaping R.F. energy, a person could attempt to use one of the radar detectors currently being marketed under various trademarks for detecting police radar surveillance to transceivers to avoid speeding tickets. These detectors, while able to detect gross amounts of radar energy, are limited in pinpointing R.F. energy escaping from a device such as a radar oven, due to the fact that the police radar detectors commonly use open end tapered horns as an impedance matching device for rectangular waveguides, and are not adapted for pinpointing a source of radar energy.